


137. morning star

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [262]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angels, Fallen Angels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 15:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10363281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Helena’s sister is hard to find, these days, ever since she Fell.(Fell is the wrong word – they keep using it, over and over, because Helena and her other sisters like using it.Fellmeans it happened by accident.It did not happen by accident.Fellis not the word for the way Sarah grinned, before she --Jumped, maybe.Left.)





	

Helena’s sister is hard to find, these days, ever since she Fell.

(Fell is the wrong word – they keep using it, over and over, because Helena and her other sisters like using it. _Fell_ means it happened by accident.

It did not happen by accident. _Fell_ is not the word for the way Sarah grinned, before she -  _Jumped_ , maybe. _Left._ )

They’ve all been keeping an eye on her, Helena and her sisters, but it’s hard to watch her – Sarah in the gutters, Sarah in the alleys, Sarah learning about human things like Drugs and Sex and Swear Words. Sarah dyeing her hair. Sarah punching mirrors. Sarah drunk and yelling at the sky, things Helena likes to think she doesn’t believe.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it: what Sarah doesn’t believe.

It’s lonely without her. Helena loves her other sisters, she does, but she and Sarah were born on the cusp of night and day and they were meant to be halves of each other. Sarah stole night from Helena when she Fell, and so when Helena goes to find her she does so during the day.

(Of course she goes to find her. It just takes her a long time to work up the nerve – to Jump, to Leave.)

(It’s not like it’s permanent. She can go back. Her wings are still there, they didn’t burn up the way Sarah’s wings burned all the way up. But it feels dirty: dirty like the pavement or the buildings or people’s mouths.)

Somewhere a car alarm is going off. Pigeons keep rustling their feathers; they can see Helena’s wings, even if the people in the city can’t. The people are just giving her angry looks out of their eye-corners, lingering on her short white dress and her bare feet before going away again. _I love you_ , Helena wants to tell them, but she’s afraid. Of what? She doesn’t know.

A bell over the door rings when Helena enters the diner. She’s been keeping track: when Sarah has a bad night she comes here early in the morning, orders tea. Sarah had a bad night last night. Helena knows; she was there.

Sarah doesn’t even look up from her tea when Helena slides across the booth from her. “I’m not going back,” she tells her chipped-up plastic mug.

The waitress comes by and stares at them, open-mouthed. “Well,” she says. “Twins.”

 _I didn’t know we were_ , Helena wants to tell her. _We all look the same, you know. I didn’t know anyone could look different._

“Also tea,” she says, voice rasping strange over someone else’s language.

(Up there, they spoke to each other in light. Helena is so scared that Sarah doesn’t know the words anymore.)

The waitress leaves. “You don’t have to come back,” Helena says. “I wanted to see you. I worry.”

“Bet you do,” Sarah mutters. “Worry from up there in your stupid ivory tower, ‘fore you go back to – what, singin’? It’s all _useless_ , Helena. At least shit down here has a _point_.”

The waitress brings Helena her tea. Helena drinks it, and then spits it out. “Oh,” she says. “Bitter.”

Sarah raises her eyebrows at Helena – Sarah finally _looks_ at Helena, and it’s just to raise her eyebrows. She takes another drink of tea. Helena finds packets labeled SUGAR, dumps four of them into her tea and stirs it and drinks. She still makes a face.

“You were happy up there,” she says softly.

“So you _do_ want me to come back.”

“I want to know what happened,” Helena says. She turns her cup around and around in her hands. “To make you. Want. This.”

“Everything’s more real down here,” Sarah says. She’s visibly gaining energy, excitement, _almost_ the sister Helena before. “I couldn’t stand it, bein’ so far away from all this – you don’t – you can’t see it? Everyone’s alive. The fights, the fucks, the – I don’t _know_ , Helena, I can’t explain it to you. It’s like everything up there was bein’ asleep, and now I’m awake.”

Helena has never been asleep. That’s something only people do.

“We were real,” she says.

“No we weren’t,” Sarah says. Underneath the table her feet are bouncing, sending the cheap diner table shaking a little bit. “Don’t you get it? C’mon, Helena, you were always the best of any of them. You can’t feel it?”

Helena folds her lips between her teeth. Sarah makes a rough sound in the back of her throat and then her hands aren’t on her cup anymore, they’re folded around Helena’s hands.

“I knew one of you would come down for me,” she says. “Wanted it to be you.”

Her hands are warm, and rough. Helena’s are neither of those things. “Look at me?” Sarah says, and Helena can’t, and Helena does. Sarah is looking at her hungrily. She never knew how to be hungry, before.

“Stay here,” Sarah says. “You already Fell, Helena! You can say you’re doin’ it by halves but – come _on_ , you’re already here. You’d love dancin’. And waffles. And _people_ , Helena, they’re amazing.” Her hands are so tight around Helena’s hands that Helena worries her cup will shatter. It’s so cheap. It’s falling apart in Helena’s hands.

“I have to go back,” she says. “They need me.”

And Sarah’s hands are gone, like they weren’t even there. Helena’s skin is very cold now; she didn’t realize, before, how cold she was. Sarah probably owns gloves. Helena takes another sip of tea, but it doesn’t warm her right.

“It doesn’t make you happy,” Sarah says.

“It does,” Helena says.

“Of course it does,” Helena says.

“It’s all I know,” Helena says.

“That’s not the same,” Sarah says. She rummages into the pocket of her jacket and pulls out a handful of coins, drops them on the table. “Look,” she says. “If you ever – if you wake up, come find me. You know where I’ll be.” And she’s out of the booth, she’s pulling her gloves out of her pocket, she’s putting them on.

Sarah does own gloves, then. They’re black. They match her jacket. When she turns her back to Helena all Helena can see is a wall of black, faceless, walking away from her, leaving Helena behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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